The Publisher's Pushback against NIH's Public Access and Scholarly Publishing Sustainability

The dying light of the George W. Bush presidency was marked by, among other things, a legislative move to derail recent gains in the federal government's opening of science. In particular, the innocuous sounding “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” introduced into the House by John Conyers, Jr., on 9 September 2008 was poised to shut down the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, as well as forestall the spread of this open-access spirit to other areas of federally sponsored research and scholarship. Hearings were held, but the bill did not make it through the House. End of story? Not quite.

[Not directly FOSS related, but definitely very interesting, since open access publishing has the same philosophy and ethos as FOSS. Thanks to Dr.ir. Jens Staal for the tip. -- Sander]